Are You My Father?
by SideshowStarlet
Summary: Young Harry tries to find his father. Randomness ensues, but it all ends happily. Funniest fic I've ever written.
1. Chapter 1

**Young Harry tries to find his father (like the baby bird in "Are You My Mother" which I've read aloud about a million times this summer alone... I work with preschoolers). Some affectionate mocking of the various HP fandom cliches that I've seen, but mostly randomness. So much randomness. Hopefully, you'll find Harry's "father," when he finds him, to be original, as I'm using the same basic idea in one of my multi-chapter fics I uploaded that's in progress and a oneshot that I haven't finished yet but will upload soon. Enjoy!  
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One morning, five year-old Harry Potter woke up to discover that he was sharing his cupboard with two luminous beings, a man and woman who were standing hand-in-hand, smiling down at him. The man was wearing glasses and had Harry's untidy black hair. The woman had long red hair and green, almond-shaped eyes that were just like Harry's. Harry gazed at the man; it was like looking like an older version of himself, except this man's eyes were hazel rather than green.

"Are you my father?" Harry asked the man.

"Well, yeah, sure," The man replied. "But your mother and I are dead. Can you imagine two dead people raising a kid?" The man adopted a high-pitched, whiny voice of a pimply teenager in the throes of a temper tantrum "'You don't understand me! Nobody understands me! My own parents don't even remember what it's like to be bound by the laws of physics and logic. Woe is me!'"

Harry, being an intelligent lad, asked, "Since you guys aren't bound by the laws of physics and logic, couldn't you send me back in time to when you were both alive and have the younger versions of yourselves raise me?"

"Let's not go there," Said the man, whose face bore a bemused expression.

"But it makes sense," Harry insisted. "I mean, I would be able to _keep you alive_, since I already know about the car crash."

"What car crash?" the red-headed woman who Harry assumed was his mother asked, puzzled.

"Aunt Petunia told me that my parents died in a car crash," Harry responded. "Didn't you know that? I mean,you were _there._"

"That BITCH," roared the normally sweet and gentle woman. "C'mon, James, we need to kick some arse!"

They both disappeared with a loud "CRACK!"

* * *

><p>As the ghosts? Spirits? Memories? of Harry's dead parents haunted the Dursleys' living room, Harry slowly exited his cupboard under the stairs, wondering if he could find someone who wanted to be his father. Meanwhile, Aunt Petunia's blond, carefully maintained hair turned green and stringy. The strands gradually thickened, morphing into dozens of hissing, unfriendly serpents. Dudley, who still hadn't noticed anything unusual going on even as the sofa he was sitting on was zooming around the living room, didn't look up from his video game. Harry wandered over to the kitchen and saw Uncle Vernon stuffing his face with a large plateful of sausages, completely oblivious to the fact that his mustache had turned purple and his face now sported bright orange spots.<p>

While watching Vernon attempt to stuff as many sausages in his mouth as he possibly could so as to get as much meat in his mouth as possible without having to go through the laborious effort of returning his fork to his plate and carrying the food up to his mouth again, Harry experienced a sudden epiphany. Sometimes, the best father doesn't have to be related to you. He could be the man that, while by no means perfect, really does care about those around him and can offer valuable insight into the workings of the human mind. Harry gazed at his uncle, the man he had shared a house with for as long as he could remember. Throughout those long, sometimes difficult years, Harry felt he had the measure of Uncle Vernon and could now understand how the man would react in any situation. Truly, he understood the heart and mind of Vernon Dursley. Watching Uncle Vernon stuff sausages into his mouth made him see the kind of man his father should be, the man who would raise him and help him make sense of this confusing world.

"Uncle Vernon?"

His uncle grunted in what Harry supposed was a questioning way.

"May I use the computer for a second? I need to do a little bit of research."

"Whatever," grunted Vernon, anxious to get back to his first breakfast of the day. "Just get out of my face."

So, Harry ran upstairs to his cousin's bedroom, bypassing the commotion in the living room as the serpent's in Petunia's hair grew long enough to reach the floor and nip at her heels. Dudley and Vernon still hadn't noticed anything amiss. He hurried to Dudley's computer and hooked up to the internet.

He typed the words "Sigmund Freud" in the search engine and excitedly began to read all of the information that popped up. It didn't take long for Harry, along with learning many interesting things about subconscious desires and repression (from which he deduced that he was lucky that his mother wasn't around when he first learned about the anatomical differences between men and women), the id, ego, and superego, to discover that Freud had died in 1939.

"Why are all the good ones DEAD?" Harry wept. In tears, he ran downstairs, past the chaotic living room, where Petunia's snakes had grown to the extent that they now covered the entire living room carpet. Unseen by everyone except Harry, his ghostly parents were standing on the coffee table, their arms around each others shoulders, laughing their heads off. Nobody noticed Harry run out the back door and into the garden.

In the garden, Harry started to throw together a funeral for the late, great Sigmund Freud, the father he never knew. However, he realized he didn't have the man's body, which to him seemed sort of important. I mean, he came out here to bury the body, right? So where the Hell was it? He remembered reading that Freud was buried in Golders Green Crematorium Cemetery, which was in London. He knew it wasn't very close by, but at least he was in the right country, right? It was important to look at the positives.

It was clear what he had to do now: steal Freud's body from its final resting place and bury it here in the Dursleys' garden, among the begonias and the zinnias. But he couldn't do it alone. He needed someone to help him, to support him, to comfort him as he wept for the dad he would never had, those moments they had never shared. So back to his quest to find his father!

* * *

><p><strong>(AN: This paragraph was taken directly out of the book Are You My Mother with only a few things changed to fit the context of the story. For those who care.) **Harry didn't walk; he ran. He ran all around the neighborhood, not even knowing what direction he was going in. He saw an old drunk sitting on a bench, drinking a can of beer. Could that old guy be his father? No, he could not. Harry did not stop; he ran on and on. After a while, he paused momentarily to catch his breath. He looked way, way down. He saw a man working in the sewers. "There he is!" Said Harry. He called to the sewer-guy, but SewerDude did not stop. SewerDude went on. Harry looked way, way up. He saw a window-washer cleaning the windows of a tall building. "Here I am, Father!" He called out to the window-washer. But the window-washer did not stop. The window-washer went on.

With all of his heart, Harry wished that he could find his father. He closed his eyes, imagining his ideal father: warm, kind, understanding, intelligent. He heard a loud "Pop!" and opened his eyes. Instead of standing on the sidewalk of suburbia, Harry found himself standing in a chilly dark room that resembled a dungeon. A man with greasy black hair was stirring a cauldron of something that was emitting clouds of green vapor.

"Are you my father?" Harry asked the man.

The man looked up to find a child with eyes that were the same color and shape as the late Lily... Lily Potter to the rest of the world; Lily Evans in his cold, blackened heart. He said nothing for a moment, gazing into this strange child's eyes, a part of his mind that he will forever deny the existence of wishing with all its might.

"No," Said the greasy-haired man quietly. The man spoke too quietly for Harry to hear the answer, but the boy could read it on the man's face. The man's expression was a grimace of regret and sadness. Though no tears fell from the man's perpetually cold black eyes, they held the grief of someone who had loved and lost.

The look lasted only an instant, however. The man's cold, angry mask slipped back into place. "Out!" He roared, brandishing the knife he had been using moments before to skin shrivelfigs. "OUT!"

The child was out the door quickly and quietly enough for Snape to convince himself that he had been hallucinating. It was known to happen when brewing this potion. Unbidden, an image of a lovely red-haired girl with sparkling green eyes swam into his mind. This picture were replaced by images of the girl blossoming into a gorgeous teenager, then finally as an adult, looking radiant in a shimmering wedding gown, being given away by her father to the most worthless scum to have ever crawled across the Earth.

Shaking his head to clear away the bittersweet memories, he threw himself back into his brewing, although the potion had reached a stage where not as much work was required. He was determined, however, to distract himself from the images of... her.

Unbeknownst to Snape, the memory of Lily Evans-Potter stood behind him, watching with a sad smile on her pretty face. She wanted to reach out, to comfort Snape, to tell him all was forgiven, but she knew that he would only close his mind to her, brush her off as a hallucination. He was a bitter man now, hardened by years of having to fight for everything he had and losing the only thing that mattered. He would not be like her son, open, innocent, and trusting, allowing himself to see the ghostly images of his biological parents.

* * *

><p>Harry ran up several flights of stairs, stopping only when he ran into someone and fell to the floor. The man he had run into had a long mane of silver hair and a beard to match. He was dressed in navy blue robes with yellow stars and moons. He did not seem the least bit surprised to have a young child crash into him. He merely smiled and pulled Harry to his feet.<p>

"Are you my father?" Harry asked the first thing he could think of.

"No. Sorry. I'm gay," Said the man breezily. "However, I think you'll find that family can be found in the places where you would last think to look. Shall we get you back home, Harry?"

"How did you know my name?" Harry asked puzzled. The old man didn't answer. He merely pulled a rubber duck out of his pocket, tapped it with a stick and muttered "_Portus_." He then handed the duck to Harry.

* * *

><p>As soon as Harry took the duck, he felt a jerk around his navel and the sensation of his feet being lifted off the ground. Before he could open his mouth to scream, he found himself standing on the front porch of Number 4 Privet Drive. Tentatively, he opened the door and walked in. The living room was back to normal. Harry's dead parents were gone, and Aunt Petunia's hair was blond and perfect again. She and Dudley were sitting on the now stationary sofa, staring at the telly. Neither gave a sign that they saw Harry enter the room.<p>

Harry walked into Uncle Vernon's study, where he was working on paperwork for Grunnings. His face was now back to normal. "Uncle Vernon?" Harry asked after Vernon had finished filling out one form and before he could move onto another.

Uncle Vernon merely grunted.

"Are you my father?"

For possibly the first time in Harry's entire life, Uncle Vernon looked into his nephew's brilliant green eyes. A spasm seemed to pass across the man's face. After farting loudly, Vernon heaved a deep sigh of relief and relaxed in his office chair.

"What did you say boy?" Uncle Vernon asked in a tone that was as close to polite as he ever got. And why shouldn't he be in a good mood? He still had no idea of the chaos that had reigned in the living room that morning and he had just relieved a lot of pressure in his intestinal area.

"Are you my father?" Harry repeated nervously, trying not to inhale too much, as the room now smelled like rotten eggs.

"NO! NO! A THOUSAND TIMES NO! NOW GET OUT OF MY STUDY! GET OUT AND STAY OUT! I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN FOR THE REST OF YOUR MISERABLE LIFE!"

"But you're raising me!" Harry protested. "I've lived in your house for years! Didn't you at least grow to love me at all? Even a little?"

Uncle Vernon snorted. Unlike normal people, who made a noise that SOUNDED like a snort by laughing derisively through their noses, running the risk of spraying the person they're laughing at with snot, Vernon actually said "Snort!" This ruined the effect somewhat. Instead of sounding like a sarcastic person laughing contemptuously at somebody else, Vernon sounded like the Snort in Are You My Mother, which said "Snort!" when it snorted, probably because it was a Snort.

When his nephew didn't move fast enough, Vernon lifted him up by the scruff of his neck, carried him over to the front door, and, with another angry "Snort!" punted him out of the house. Vernon's kick was stronger than his sense of sarcasm, sending Harry a distance of about 500 feet and making about as much sense as anything else that had happened to Harry today.

Harry landed on his bottom and got up with no injury other than a pain in his rear. If he was a cartoon character, he would have stars coming out of his bum.

* * *

><p>Gloomily, Harry wandered about the street. He had given up finding a father. Right now, he had other things to worry about. He had no food, no money. How was he to survive? Harry wandered around aimlessly until nightfall. By this point, he was starving and the night had brought with it a harsh chill that sent him, shivering, onto the doorstep of the only house that was nearby. It was late at night and the house's lights were off. However, Harry could hear the shouts and cheers of a large crowd of people coming from inside the house. He knocked at the door timidly. Nobody answered; the shouting continued uninterrupted.<p>

The front door was unlocked. Harry slowly opened it and slipped inside. He followed the voices downstairs to a large basement. When he entered the room, he saw a huge ring of men gathered around something Harry couldn't see. Now and then, someone would cheer or jeer loudly. Harry edged his way through the crowd, his small frame working to his advantage, as none of the men even noticed the boy moving among them. When Harry reached the front of the crowd, he saw what the men were acting so excited over: two men beating the crap out of each other.

However, this wasn't quite the same as Dudley beating up Harry. For one thing, the men were actually evenly matched in size, as opposed to Harry being thoroughly squashed by Dudley, who was about four times bigger than he was. The guys seemed to be having fun, too. This wasn't an aggressor going after somebody for lunch money and the victim trying to fight him off while keeping all his limbs intact. This looked like a game, a sport. This looked like fun.

In the end, the smaller guy won the fight. Harry took heart from this and cheered louder than anyone else as the victor pulled the other man to his feet, all animosity forgotten. Perhaps Harry should not have cheered quite so loudly. His outburst brought the eyes of the room upon room. The crowd quickly fell silent as a muscular man with spiky blond hair stepped forward. The man, obviously the group's leader said, "The eighth rule is if this is your first night at Fight Club, you HAVE to fight." The man put a hand on Harry's shoulder and gave him a gentle push into the center of the ring. "All right, who wants to take him?"

None of the men met their leader's eyes. Nobody wanted to be the one to beat up a skinny little boy. Harry was shocked that they weren't rushing to the center, eager for an easy victory. The people here were so different from the ones he was used to encountering. When no volunteer stepped forward, the man scanned the room and spotted a pretty blond boy who looked no older than sixteen. "Mister Angel-Face," the leader said, beckoning the teenager forward. "You're up next. Ricky, you're fighting the winner."

Angelface obediently stepped forward, pulling off his shirt and kicking off his shoes as he walked. There was no way he could disobey an order from the leader of Fight Club, Tyler Durden. He planned to just knock the kid over as gently as possible, then take him back home. He figured that Tyler was trying to teach this kid a lesson. He wasn't ready to play with the grown-ups yet. Tyler had tried to teach him that same lesson when he first joined up, but had gotten a shock. Angel had beaten every single one of his opponents. He had been going to Fight Club for two weeks now, and he had never lost a fight.

The boy imitated Angel, pulling off his baggy shirt and kicking off his trainers. "Fight! Fight! Fight!" The crowd began to shout. Angel gave the boy a gentle shove, wanting it to be just hard enough to knock him down. However, the push barely caused the boy to stumble. Apparently, the kid was stronger than he looked. The kid returned the shove with a kick to Angel's shins. It hurt more than Angel expected, but by now he was used to much stronger people trying to kick his ass. Angel decided to end this farce of a fight quickly by picking the boy up and tossing him as gently as possible to the ground. However, as soon as he had the boy in his arms, the kid grabbed onto Angel's hair and swung forwards, kicking Angel in the stomach. Angel doubled over in pain from the unexpectedly hard kick; the boy had put all of his weight into it. While Angel was momentarily doubled over, the kid took the opportunity to lean forward and sink his teeth into Angel's neck. Angel yelped, trying to pull the kid off; he was always so good at preventing fighters from getting a blow in anywhere near his handsome face. The boy's bite was so strong that Angel could not pull the kid off. He tried sticking his hands in the boy's mouth to unclamp his extra-strength jaws. As Angel's hands were occupied, now hanging freely by his jaw's grip on Angel's neck, used his own hands to repeatedly punch both of Angel's eyes. The punches were swifter than they were strong, but they kept coming, effectively blinding Angel. The boy used his freely swinging feet to continue kicking Angel in the stomach, and, fuck, this kid could kick like a mule. Angel gave up trying to wrench open the boy's jaw and simply pushed at the kid's face with both hands as hard as he could. He was certain that this would cause the kid to go flying off him and onto the floor. This would have happened if there were not strange forces at work tonight. Angel felt a powerful force push him back, causing Angel to fall backwards. The back of his head hit the stone floor of the basement, causing him to black out for a second. That second counted. Inexplicably, the small boy became the very first person to ever beat Angelface in a fight. There were some good-natured chuckles at the irony of this from the men who had been beaten soundly by the unexpectedly strong Angelface.

"Ricky, you're up next," Tyler ordered. Ricky stepped forward, convinced that Angel's defeat was a fluke and determined to keep away from the little bugger's teeth. However, Ricky was soon knocked out by that unexplainable force that sent him sprawling to the ground. After three more Fight Club regulars were similarly defeated, the group began to take the kid seriously. Now that he had proven himself, Harry was allowed to remain in the audience and watch the others fight.

The leader made his way over to Harry, who was watching, fascinated, as one man punched another with enough force to send him flying. Harry didn't notice the spiky-haired man until he put a hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry jumped and turned around, putting his fists up, ready to defend himself. But the man did not attack, merely asked "Who told you about us?"

"Nobody," Said Harry. "My uncle kicked me out. I've been wandering around all day. I was hungry, cold, and tired, and I didn't have anywhere I could stay. I heard people still awake in this house, so I knocked on the door to ask for something to eat. Nobody answered, but the door was unlocked. I walked in, followed the voices, and here I am."

The man considered him for a moment. While the blond man was thinking, Harry saw a brunette man with a bruised face appear at the blond man's shoulder. The brunette didn't seem happy about Harry's very existence, much less his presence in Fight Club. He looked like he was about to say something, but the blond merely put a hand on his shoulder.

"Why don't I take you up to the kitchen?" Asked the blonde. "You can have a bite and we'll talk." Harry nodded in agreement. All the fighting he had been doing had made him even hungrier. These fights were strange. Generally, the only way he could win a fight with Dudley would be to run fast enough that he could escape long enough for his cousin to lose interest. Now, when fighting against much larger, stronger men, _something _was on his side. He didn't know what, but his interest was piqued. He resolved to test this power further as soon as he possibly could. But first, food.

After exchanging a long look with the brunette, the blond man took Harry by the hand and led him up the basement stairs to the house's kitchen. The single light bulb hanging from the ceiling did little to illuminate the room, but it shed enough light to reveal the shapes of a refrigerator, a stove, and a small wooden table with two wooden chairs. The blond motioned for Harry to sit, and Harry obediently climbed into one of the wooden chairs and watched the man fry some eggs. He got one plate for himself and another plate for Harry, then sat down at the table across from Harry.

"First things first," Said the blond man around a mouthful of egg. "I'm Tyler Durden. Who the Hell are you?"

"Harry Potter," Harry replied. "Nice to meet you." And he meant it. Harry couldn't remember anyone being as nice to him as Tyler was, cooking him a meal after he walked into his house uninvited.

There was a short moment of silence before Harry asked, "What's Fight Club?"

"Pretty much self-explanatory," Tyler replied. "Men get together and fight each other. But you need to follow the rules; otherwise you're out for good. The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule is if somebody goes says 'stop,' goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over. The fourth rule is only two guys to a fight. The fifth rule of Fight Club is only one fight at a time. Sixth rule is no shirts, no shoes when fighting. The seventh rule is fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth rule is if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight. You've already done that, of course. Nice job, by the way."

"Thanks," Harry said blushing, unused to compliments. "Who was that brown-haired man standing next to you downstairs?"

"What brown-haired man?" Tyler asked, puzzled.

"The one who was looking at me like he didn't like me. You patted his shoulder before we went upstairs."

Tyler was now staring at Harry as though he had never seen anyone like him before. "Did we look like two different people to you?" He asked.

"Yes," Said Harry. "I mean, you two don't look anything alike. He's skinny and pale with brown hair, and you're all blond and muscular."

"Interesting," Tyler said quietly, still staring at Harry. Then he seemed to snap out of it. "Right, I decided. You can stay here."

"Really," Said Harry happily. "You don't mind?"

"Wouldn't be letting you stay here if I minded," Tyler replied. "Now, there's a room upstairs nobody's using, second door on your right. It's right next to my room, and Jack- he's the brown-haired man you saw earlier- has a room down the hall. Jack's kind of the face of Fight Club, but my name's all over, so what I say goes. Just do me a favor and don't talk about Jack to other people, OK?"

"OK," Said Harry.

"Promise me," Said Tyler.

"I promise."

"Promise me," Tyler repeated.

"I promise," Harry replied.

"Promise me," Tyler said again.

"I promise I won't talk about Jack to other people," Said Harry.

"That's three times you promised me," Said Tyler, giving Harry an oddly intense look. Harry shifted uncomfortably under his gaze before Tyler said, "You must be tired. You go up to bed, and I'll wrap up Fight Club."

His meal finished, Harry obediently went upstairs to his room. The room was plain, just a bed, a small table, and a dusty, old fashioned wardrobe, but it was loads better than the Dursleys' cupboard under the stairs. Exhausted, Harry climbed into the bed and fell asleep before his head hit the lumpy pillow.

He stirred a little and opened his eyes slightly a few minutes later when he heard Tyler enter the room. "Good night, son," Tyler said, gently ruffling Harry's hair and momentarily revealing a scar shaped like a lightning bolt on Harry's forehead.

Harry managed a sleepy "G'nite, dad." By the time he realized what he had said, Tyler had left the room. Harry sat straight up in bed, his newfound family making him hyper with happiness. He had a father now. **(A/N: Another section inspired by the book Are You My Mother?)** He is not the ghost of a dead man. He is not the dead body of a groundbreaking psychologist, buried in a London cementary. He isnot a drunk hanging out on a park bench or a window washer, or a sewage worker. He is not a depressed potion-maker hanging out in a dungeon. He is not- is probably not- gay, although sometimes it's hard to tell. However, Harry was certain Tyler isn't a fairy dressed in a fancy outfit, waving a wand around or a sausage-eating Snort. No, he is Tyler Durden, and he is Harry's father.

**Epilogue: Nineteen days later **

And they all lived happily ever after.

Harry was able to put his nonexistent memories of Sigmund Freud, the father who died long before he was conceived, to rest when he, Tyler, and a few other guys from Fight Club robbed Freud's grave and gave the decomposing body a proper burial in a vat of green Jello that was to be served in the Smeltings' school cafeteria. Smeltings, being a school for stupid rich kids who were too dumb to get into any other school but whose parents wanted to tell people that their little darling got accepted into an _exclusive _private school, had its share of burnt-out employees, especially since the headmaster himself was a proud Smeltings graduate. So, the cafeteria ladies, realizing that the stupid little pigs (which somebody with a theatrical flair dressed up in human clothing and insisted were children) would eat anything, decided to serve it anyway, rather than go through the trouble of making a new vat. The new recipe was an instant success. Previously, many a Smeltings employee had put plans to assassinate the moronic headmaster on hold because they couldn't think of a way to conceal the body without being found out by the police. The new culinary delight inspired them to make their sweetest dreams come true.

Harry, Tyler, and the Fight Club guys who were in on the prank had so much fun that they wanted to pull more zany practical jokes. Thus, Project Mayhem was born. Currently, the group was researching the effects of castration, or threatened castration, of influential civil servants on political decision making. The findings were fascinating, but kept secret. Remember, the first rule of Project Mayhem is you do not ask questions. The second rule of Project Mayhem is you DO NOT ask questions.

The drunk on the bench turned his life around. He gave up drinking, showered, shaved, and got a job. He slowly but surely worked his way up the corporate ladder until he became CEO of a major car company. His business was eventually vandalized by Project Mayhem in a fit of high spirits. They had broken the windows in strategic places on the building and set fire to a couple of the rooms. From the outside, the fire took the shape of a smiley face. Even the formerly alcoholic CEO had to chuckle. I mean, come on! It looked like a freakin' Jack-O-Lantern!

Both the window washer and the sewage worker looked at their lives, looked at their choices, and realized that their loneliness stemmed from the fact that they spent too much time working. So, they cut back their hours and took less jobs, hoping that the decrease in their paycheck would be compensated by the addition of somebody to share their life and their hearts with. At first, their quest for love appeared hopeless. But, one fateful night, they met in a local singles bar, and they've been together ever since.

Severus Snape eventually finished the potion he was working on, a dreamless sleep potion. He took it that night and slept peacefully for the first time in years.

Albus Dumbledore took up knitting.

Vernon Dursley continued to eat sausages in his perfectly normal house on Privet Drive. He did like his sausages. During a Grunnings company party, he struck up a friendship with the sassy, gay window washer, whose name, he learned, was Terry. They met for drinks that evening, when Terry introduced him to the "Love of his life," Bobby, who worked at a sewage treatment plant. Occasionally, the three would meet at Vernon's house for brunch, during which many varieties of sausage would, of course, be served. The hours they spent together passed quickly. Oh, how Vernon grew to love his two new sassy gay friends. The way they talked had him constantly "Snort"-ing with laughter. Petunia Dursley was pleased to see that her husband was so happy, but was a little annoyed that her husband still thought he had to actually say the word "Snort!" whenever he snorted with laughter. It didn't matter so much before, but now that he was laughing more often, it was really beginning to be noticeable. She just hoped the neighbors didn't find out.

**A/N: So, in case you didn't know, the guy who ended up being Harry's "father" was Tyler Durden from the book/movie Fight Club. For those who don't know, at the end of Fight Club, Tyler is revealed to be Jack's schizophrenic hallucination, so everybody SEES Jack's face when Tyler Durden is talking to them, but it's Tyler's words that come out of his mouth. Hence Tyler's comment that Jack is the "face" of Fight Club, but Fight Club has Tyler's name all over it and what Tyler says goes. Harry is special, so he sees both Jack and Tyler. **

**Of all the fics I've written, this one is my favorite. I turned out exactly the way I wanted it to, even if it took longer than I expected. Worth it!**

**Currently, I'm obsessed with the idea of Harry Potter and Tyler Durden me****eting. I'm working on a oneshot (not published yet) where six year-old Harry, obsessed with stories of fighting and adventure and with a mysterious knack for fixing things, runs away from the abusive Dursleys and joins Project Mayhem. **

**I have in progress (three chapters published) a multi-chapter saga where one year-old Harry wanders off the Dursleys' doorstep and is found and raised by Tyler Durden. It isn't as goofy as the rest of my stories and I'm a little slow on updating, but imagine runaway zoo animals, a baby with mysterious healing powers, a pet tiger cub, suspence, drama, bromances, and a different (dare I say, decent) Vernon Dursley. And that's just what I came up with so far. Don't trust your imagination to any other author. **

**Am also hoping to start writing a Harry Potter/Tyler Durden slash in which an older Harry has been betrayed by the Wizarding world (been done to death, I know), runs away, discovers Fight Club, and meets Tyler Durden. Slash ensues, but in a hopefully non-cheesy way. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:This chapter's not funny like the first one was, but it's still creative. This is more for tying up some loose ends with Harry and Tyler. Some Fight Club references, but you'll probably still enjoy the fic even if you haven't read the book or seen the movie. If you don't want to watch the movie but still want to understand the references, just Google "Fight Club" and you'll find a plot summary. That's probably all you'll need since I didn't put in any in-depth details, just general references. Just remember as you're reading this that Tyler (the blond guy who Harry sees as his surrogate father) is Jack's (the brunette guy that doesn't like Harry) schizophrenic hallucination. Everyone except Jack and Harry sees the brunette man (Jack) as Tyler Durden, the leader of Fight Club and Project Mayhem. Only Jack and Harry actually see the blond man that they know as Tyler. Tyler made Harry promise that he wouldn't talk about Jack to other people so that Harry would never realize that everyone sees Tyler and "Jack" as the same (questionably sane) person.  
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Tyler Durden said that perfection is impossible to achieve, claiming that people should let the chips fall where they may. However, Harry believed that his new life with Fight Club, Project Mayhem, and his new father, Tyler, was damn near perfect. There was just one little cloud blocking out his personal ray of sunshine. Tyler's best friend, Jack hated him as much as the Dursleys ever did. Harry could see Jack glaring at him whenever they were in the same room and clenching his fists whenever Harry spoke as though longing to shove his fist down Harry's throat. Harry wasn't too fond of Jack either. Stuff him with sausages, keep him out of fights, and give him a comfy desk job in some office somewhere, and he could be Uncle Vernon.

From what Harry understood, Fight Club was mainly made up of men who were afraid of becoming like Uncle Vernon or could feel themselves becoming Uncle Vernon and wanted to halt the process. But with Jack, it would take a heck of a lot more than getting into a few fights every night and belonging to an anarchistic cult to keep Jack from turning into Vernon Dursley. Still, Jack was his new father's best friend, so that made him a second father of sorts. Having two dads, even if one didn't like you, was a lot better than having no dad at all. So, any frustrations the two had with each other, they saved for Fight Club.

Harry, through his mysterious gift and surprising amount of athleticism, managed to win about half of their fights. However, whenever Jack fought with Harry, it was like some dam had burst, flooding the ring with repressed rage. He didn't hold back; he punched, kicked, and bit like he wanted to see Harry dead, rather than like a repressed 30 year-old wanting a good fight to assuage his feelings of emptiness. Whenever Harry floored him, Jack didn't seem to have the common sense to know when he was beaten. He was up again, his moves weaker, his reflexes slower, but he was still fighting until Harry beat him into unconsciousness. Then, Jack would be dragged off to the sidelines to recover while another fight went on. When Jack came to, he generally challenged Harry to _another_ fight. And the war went on. When Jack won a fight and he saw Harry tap out, he stopped his beating with great reluctance. His eyes would be unfocused, as though he was daydreaming about beating Harry to death (Harry had to admit that he had indulged in these very same daydreams about Jack, although he was willing to bet that his methods of killing somebody were far more creative than anything Jack could come up with, Tyler's buddy or not).

Judging by the slightly unglued smile on Jack's face whenever he stared, victorious, down at Harry, it was a very pleasant daydream. Harry wasn't stupid. He knew the only reason Jack didn't completely beat the shit out of him was because he was such good friends with Tyler. Harry had no doubt that if anyone else was his surrogate father, Jack would have pounded him into raw hamburger.

By contrast, whenever Harry was going up against Tyler, he would always hold back, go easy on him. No matter how much Tyler told him that to hold back would ruin the whole point of Fight Club, Harry could not bring himself to strike his father very hard. So, Tyler always ended up winning their fights. Harry didn't mind this at all. It just seemed _wrong _for anyone to try to beat the shit out of Tyler Durden, even though it was all in fun. Even though Tyler was much stronger than he was, whenever he tried to fight the man, he felt like Dudley, beating up his smaller cousin for no reason. After all Tyler had done for him, there was a part of his mind that slowed down his punches and softened his blows during fights with Tyler; a part of his mind unwilling to accept the idea of hurting this great man.

Aside from having to put up with Jack, things were good. His uncle had pulled him out of school whenever he kicked him out of the house, claiming that the boy went to live with some relatives in America. Harry had not wanted to be re-enrolled, as he had hated it there. Academically, the boy was far ahead of his peers in reading (as seen by the way he threw himself into researching his "Father figure," Sigmund Freud) and math (as demonstrated by the way Harry could easily add and subtract sums of stolen money, teeth left in someone's mouth after a fight, etc). Having to go to school every day was simply holding him back; anyone could see that. So, he spent his days being tutored by Tyler and helping plan new pranks for Project Mayhem.

Surprisingly, Tyler found himself take to fatherhood and primary school education like a duck to water. His experience as leader of Fight Club and Project Mayhem meant that he had no problem enforcing discipline and he knew how to motivate. Harry, after spending most of his childhood at the Dursleys, where he was punished for every little thing that went wrong, found Tyler's demanding but (in his own way) loving parenting style to be a welcome change. Unlike the Dursleys, who regarded Harry as an incurable freak, Tyler appreciated Harry's gifts, both his intellect and his more... mysterious attributes. He spent the days teaching Harry useful information. Instead of gym class, where the other children feared Dudley's wrath and therefore refused to let him join in on their pointless, simpleminded games, Harry grew even fitter from Tyler showing him exercises and fight moves. Whatever Tyler told him to do, Harry strove to do at least twice that, determined to make his new father proud of him.

Harry's reading skills were far beyond those taught in primers and picture books, and Tyler didn't have any around the house, anyway. So, he had the boy read the newspapers (chiefly articles which covered the Project Mayhem missions that Harry had been in on) and Jack's old copies of Reader's Digest. Man, Jack loved his Reader's Digest, and, inexplicably, Harry was developing a fondness for the epic saga written from the point of view of various organs in first person. In fact, the closest Harry and Jack came to getting along was when they were sequestered in some quiet corner of the house, reading old copies of Reader's Digest. It was a strange way to bond, but, what the Hell, it worked for them. But, when the old magazines were closed and stashed away, Jack was a right bastard to be around. He was always making snotty comments about "The kid," how he shouldn't be here, how they should have left him in an orphanage. Forget Uncle Vernon; this guy sounded a lot like Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge but without the mustache.

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><p>But, the important thing was Harry was learning. One afternoon, Tyler was teaching his new sonapprentice how to make soap. After he described the way the lye would break down the human fat, making a waxy, soap-like substance, Harry said "If you get lucky in Fight Club and punch your opponent in the right spot, you can turn a man's whole body into soap. A good hit to the pancreas would cause inflammation, Acute Pancreatitis. The enzymes in the pancreas are allowed to escape and attack the body, causing saponification, literally meaning 'soap-making.' The fat breaks down into soap, just like it would if it was mixed with lye. It'll take time, but if you know where to hit, you can turn a man into a giant soap carving." **(A/N: I was doing my nursing pre-reqs when I first saw Fight Club almost 2 years ago. My Health Alterations class had just finished studying Pancreatitis, and I was totally thinking this during the scene where Tyler and "Jack" make soap. I think it would have been cool if they incorporated this into Fight Club somehow. Still, at least I finally got to put it in one of my fics.)**

"Good answer!" Said Tyler, clapping Harry on the shoulder with a gloved hand. "Remind me to never get on your bad side."

"What?" Asked Harry, confused. Then realization of what Tyler was implying hit him. "Sir, I'd never do that to you! You could never be on my bad side, ever! I love you, dad."

Tyler was now gripping both of Harry's shoulders as Harry threw his arms around his surrogate father. "You trust me, right?" Tyler asked.

"Yes," Said Harry, his voice now muffled as he had buried his head into Tyler's chest.

"Sit down, then," Tyler ordered, pointing to one of the kitchen chairs.

Harry obediently sat down, not taking his eyes off of Tyler. Tyler brought over the bottle of lye and pulled over the other chair so that he was sitting next to Harry. "Put these on," Tyler said, handing Harry a pair of goggles. Harry slipped them around his head. These goggles had rubber seals around the eyes, almost like the goggles Dudley wore when he went swimming.

"You know the reason we have Fight Club, right?" Tyler asked.

Harry had a feeling he knew where this was going. Tyler was going to try to convince Harry to beat the shit out of him in the ring. Harry really tried, but a part of his mind not under his control was not letting him do it.

"Yes, Sir. To help us fight for the man inside all of us, the man that society would try to suppress. To allow our inner strength to come out and to experience the joy that could only come from beating the shit out of somebody else. To achieve the enlightenment that could only be acquired by dying, hitting bottom, and rising again to fight some more." Harry rattled this off with the air of someone who has heard this speech a thousand times before and is still motivated by it.

"So, you understand why you can never hold back in a fight?" Asked Tyler. "That would defeat the whole purpose. You'll never achieve Nirvana if you keep fighting that killer instinct. Don't worry about me; I can take care of myself better than those other guys that you beat the crap out of."

"I know that!" Said Harry, who was almost whining now. He took a second to calm himself before he continued; Tyler hated whining. "I don't have a problem practicing fight moves with you, but I love you too much to really fight you. Can't I achieve freedom by beating up the other guys? I already do that really well." Besides, having the opportunity to beat Jack to a pulp was such a great stress-reliever.

"No," Said Tyler firmly. "You have to go 100%, to completely hit bottom. It's only when we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

"Now, I'm going to help you out with this. It's going to hurt, but it'll make you want to beat the shit out of me in the ring tonight." Tyler brushed Harry's messy bangs out of the way and kissed Harry's forehead, just above his lightning-shaped scar. He checked to make sure that Harry's goggles were tightly secured around his eyes. Then, he opened the bottle of lye. Harry, guessing what was coming, instinctively pulled his head back, but Tyler grabbed him by the hair and held him in place. He then shook the lye onto the boy's forehead, over the kiss. The combination of lye and the saliva from Tyler's kiss created an explosion of pain as the chemical began to eat away at Harry's skin.

Harry screamed in agony. Blinded by pain, he tried to reach up and wipe the chemical off his forehead, but Tyler had Harry's arms pinned to his sides. "This is called a chemical burn," Harry heard Tyler's voice as though it were coming from far away. Harry kicked, and his foot connected with what he guessed was Tyler's knee. However, it did nothing to decrease the pain in his forehead or Tyler's restraining grip. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and felt the now-familiar sensation of his strange power working through him. Normally, it sent his opponent backwards into the ground. However, either the excruciating pain Harry was going through had weakened the power or Tyler had prepared for the blast and had taken measures to steady himself, as Harry still felt Tyler's arms on him holding him in place. After an eternity of fighting as helplessly as a weak kitten against Tyler's hold, Harry felt some liquid splash onto his forehead. The liquid took away the worst of the pain. He was able to open his eyes. After his vision adjusted, he saw Tyler's face inches from his own, gazing at his forehead. "Congratulations," Tyler said. "You are one step closer to hitting bottom." Only one step closer? Harry wondered how much more he would have to go through before he could make himself as free as Tyler Durden was.

Speaking of Tyler... Harry lunged at him as soon as he felt his strength returning. Tyler seemed to be expecting this and wrestled Harry back into the chair. He doused Harry's forehead with more of the same liquid until the pain was gone entirely. As soon as the pain was completely gone, Harry kicked Tyler in the stomach as hard as he could. This didn't seem to faze the man, as he said "Save it for Fight Club. Now, pay attention." And he went about showing Harry how to make soap and the chemical reactions involved.

That night at Fight Club, Harry came over to Tyler to challenge him to a fight. He saw him talking to that pretty blond boy that Harry had his first fight with. Since then, Harry had learned that the "boy" was eighteen years old, was christened "Angelface" by Tyler because of his good looks, and that nobody at the Club knew his real name, except for Angel himself, but he wasn't about to tell anybody. Harry liked Angel; he was intelligent with a good sense of humor. He was one of the guys who had joined Project Mayhem and so were living in the basement of Tyler's house. The fact that the basement was now crowded with triple-decker bunk beds meant that Fight Club had to be held in a different area. One of the guys had found the basement of a seedy bar, and they were testing out the location. "See you later tonight, then," Tyler said before he turned to Harry and led him to the center of the ring.

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><p>Harry bit his lip in thought. He would often hear bumps, moans, screams, and moans coming from Tyler's room. When these involved different women that Tyler would meet in bars, Harry merely shrugged this off and went back to sleep. He had gone to primary school long enough to realize that anything involving girls was stupid beyond all hope of description. If they weren't making dolls talk, they were playing house or running around the playground trying to kiss boys. It seemed Tyler Durden was the only man with a high enough IQ to survive prolonged exposure to such stupidity. To a man of average intelligence, the female-induced loss of those precious IQ points would cause what remained of his brain to ooze out of his ears. However, Tyler could not only still function though the female presence must be putting his brain through the wringer, but he was still a bloody genius. However, ever since Angel had moved into their basement, the pretty blond boy had been spending almost every night in Tyler's room. He seemed to put Tyler in a better mood the morning after, as opposed to the girls, with whom he was invariably grouchy and stand-offish in the morning as he tried to get them out of the house as quickly as possible.<p>

At one point, Harry had gotten curious and had asked Angel what he and Tyler did when they were in Tyler's room all night. Angel had blushed and randomly started teaching Harry how to play poker with a deck of cards that happened to be lying around. However, Harry got the feeling that Angel and Tyler were playing something else. Poker, as played by Harry, was many things: entertaining, cutthroat, profitable; noisy was not one of them. Still (as Angel had been too embarrassed to remember), the first rule of Project Mayhem is you do not ask questions, so Harry left it at that. The "Don't ask questions" thing was the only thing Tyler and the Dursleys had in common. However, the Dursleys maintained this rule in order to maintain a facade of normalcy. Tyler Durden kept this rule because it kept all the Project Mayhem guys in on this big secret.

Thus, the mysteries of what Angel and Tyler did behind closed doors remained largely unexplored. "Yeah, they're screwing," Said a mysterious voice Harry had never heard before. He looked around; none of the other guys seemed to have heard it. Though the voice was not loud, it carried clearly through the rowdy crowd of men. Harry's eyes darted suspiciously around the room. "Your dad's not completely gay, if that's what you're wondering," Said that same voice. Though Harry swore he heard the voice, a thorough look around the room convinced him that none of the men's lips were forming the words. Maybe it was coming from behind a wall. "That Angel guy, though," The voice continued. Harry frowned, straining his ears to figure out which wall the voice was coming from. "Gay as the Fourth of July!" Finished the voice in a distinctly gossipy tone. Harry was fairly certain that the completely random, never to be heard again voice had come from behind the fourth wall that he looked at. As he continued to make his way to the middle of the ring with Tyler, he wondered what the Hell screwing was. **(A/N: In case you didn't get that, the voice was coming from behind the fourth wall. When this happens in literature or theater, the character is communicating directly with the author/audience. Haha, how DO I come up with these? Just adding a little bit of randomness, since all of my stories have to meet a certain weirdness quota.)**

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><p>The pain on Harry's forehead from the burn seemed to return more intensely as Harry faced Tyler across the ring. "I'm gonna win this one," He said menacingly in his father's direction.<p>

Tyler did not seem cowed by Harry's five year-old attempts to intimidate. He simply smirked. "We'll see." **  
><strong>

And the fight began. Tyler let Harry make the first move. Harry stated with a swift punch to the stomach that Tyler barely felt. However, Harry had been practicing his gift, and immediately after shrugging off the punch, Tyler felt himself be pushed backwards by an invisible force. He managed to stay on his feet, and returned the attack with a punch to Harry's nose. After experiencing a chemical burn earlier that day, a bloody nose was like a pesky fly easily swatted away. The fight continued for what for almost an hour, both of them kicking, punching, and (in Harry's case) biting until their bodies were completely exhausted, but refusing to give up. The crowd was screaming itself hoarse; it was amazing that nobody from upstairs had come down to investigate. Every muscle in Harry's body was sore. He was so tired that he could barely keep his eyes open, muchless put up a decent fight.

Throughout the weeks that he spent at Fight Club, Harry had been able to gain some measure of control over his mysterious talent, sending it out whenever he needed it by focusing on the situation and how much he could _really _use some help right now. However, that required energy that he didn't have. He remembered his first night at Fight Club, when the power seemed to be going through him, rather than him consciously controlling it. It was like that now. Harry felt a strange, irresistible force push its way out of the palms of his hands. The force hit Tyler, who at this point was panting heavily and wiping the sweat from his eyes. The wave of energy, which Tyler could not fight off in his exhausted, unaware state sent Tyler sprawling to the ground.

Trembling with exhaustion, Harry knelt on top of Tyler's chest, yanked him by his untidy blond hair and slammed his head into the concrete floor. Tyler groaned. He was most definitely tapped out. For the first time, Harry had won a fight against Tyler Durden. Cheers rang out amongst the crowd, who appreciated a good fight and had seen Harry best the brunette man calling himself "Tyler Durden" before.

Anger and animosity forgotten, Harry helped Tyler to his feet and led him by the hand towards an empty area of the basement.

He had fought his father, had done his very best to maim him, to destroy him, and Hell had not frozen over. He was still his father. As long as that fact remained the same, nothing else mattered, whether they be fighting, bleeding, or playing a prank on a major corporation.

Tyler, used to fighting, recovered quickly and was soon tapping another guy for a fight. Jack watched Harry closely out of the corner of his eye. Little Pipsqueak was getting stronger. It didn't look like the brat would be leaving anytime soon. Time to amp things up.

Harry noticed Jack's stare and smirked. He and Jackie-boy were long overdue for another fight. Time to kick some ass.

**A/N: To continue or not to continue? I have some more ideas for this; I just want to see if people would be interested. If not, I'll just keep this as a two-shot. Also check out: **

**The highly popular, completely random AU "Dudley Dursley's Sassy Gay Friend" and **

**"Mischief, Mayhem, Magic," my other Harry is raised by Tyler Durden story.  
><strong>


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